CEO of BlackBerry maker makes case for comeback

AP, SAN JOSE, California

Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins discusses features of the BlackBerry 10 during his keynote address at a conference in San Jose, California, on Tuesday.

Photo: Reuters

Research In Motion (RIM) chief executive Thorsten Heins is convinced the company’s BlackBerry smartphone is poised to regain its stature as a trailblazing device even as many investors fret about its potential demise.

Heins took the stage on Tuesday at a conference for mobile applications developers to rally support for the upcoming release of BlackBerry 10, a new operating system that Research In Motion Ltd is touting as its salvation after years of blundering.

The gathering in San Jose, California, served as the equivalent of a revival meeting for RIM. The Canadian company has been laying off thousands of workers to offset growing losses after being outmaneuvered by iPhone maker Apple Inc and other smartphone makers relying on Google Inc’s Android software.

“We recognize the need for change,” said Heins, who was promoted to CEO in January as RIM’s troubles deepened. “There is a new energy and a lot of fighting spirit at RIM.”

Heins and other top RIM executives used the conference to provide a glimpse at some of the BlackBerry 10’s new features. The redesigned software will not hit the market until a still-unscheduled date early next year.

That means RIM’s new software will not be available during the holiday shopping season, but Heins did his best to argue that the BlackBerry 10 will be worth the wait.

“We are committed to making BlackBerry 10 an inflection point in mobile computing,” Heins said.

The system is being designed to make it easier to find and use multiple applications simultaneously by swiping a finger across the smartphone’s display screen, instead of having to press on a home button to navigate through a menu of programs, like the iPhone requires. All notifications from various applications are supposed to be sent a central point known as the BlackBerry Hub.

In an attempt to cater to its main customer base of business users, RIM also promises BlackBerry 10 will offer more security features, better calendar management features and more tools to connect with other workers.

Investors appeared to be heartened by what they heard and saw from RIM on Tuesday. The company’s stock gained US$0.32, or 5 percent, to US$6.62 in Tuesday’s afternoon trading. That is still far below the stock’s peak price of about US$148, reached in June 2008.